Pass The Dutchie: NMS2S Integration Challenges Begin To Boil Over

While license holders across New Mexico are figuring out what they can do inside NMS2S, they are also beginning to discover what they can’t do; and what they can no longer rely on integrators to do for them.

Lost In The Sauce

According to Dutchie, the current integration only supports retail sales, patient validation, medical allotment checks, voids and receiving incoming inventory. Sales are reported at checkout, while inventory information is synchronized approximately every 15 minutes.

That connection does not currently extend to many of the inventory actions operators have become accustomed to performing inside their third-party systems, such as adjustments, conversions, and splits, all which currently have to be entered separately in both Dutchie and NMS2S.

Between Planes

If an operator performs a conversion or split in Dutchie, that action does not currently create the corresponding transaction in NMS2S.

The same problem exists across the board with 3rd party integrators with outbound wholesale transfers and manifests. A manifest created in outside of NMS2S does not automatically create the state record. Operators must create the corresponding transaction in NMS2S as well.

Every action performed in one system creates another record that has to be accurately reproduced in the other. The more manufacturing, packaging, transfers and inventory manipulation an operation performs, the more opportunities there are for the two inventories to drift apart.

For operators that previously treated Dutchie as their primary operating system while the state system quietly received information through an integration, this is a substantial procedural change.

Receiving

Inbound inventory has a clearer path, but even that workflow has changed.

Dutchie Support said operators should first receive incoming inventory in NMS2S. Once received by the state system, the inventory should populate inside Dutchie’s “New Mexico Inventory Not Yet Received” queue.

From there, the operator can receive the inventory into Dutchie, match the items to the appropriate catalog records and assign their locations.

There is one important limitation: according to Dutchie, incoming NMS2S inventory is currently grouped together under a single pending transfer rather than appearing as individual transfers.

That may not stop receiving, but it changes how receiving teams identify, organize and reconcile incoming product.

The Sales Floor Bridge

The physical and digital location of inventory also matters.

Dutchie Support explained that Dutchie can see inventory outside the sales floor, but an item cannot actually be sold until it is placed in an appropriate sales location in both systems.

The External Package ID in Dutchie must also match the state barcode associated with the NMS2S inventory. So an item can physically exist, appear in Dutchie and still fail at the register if its NMS2S record isn’t properly positioned.

This makes room management, barcode mapping and inventory reconciliation considerably more important than they were when operators could depend on a more mature integration to keep the systems aligned.

Manufacturing Hope

Dutchie said it has not received a formal roadmap from NMS2S or Real Time Solutions for manufacturing API support.

When asked specifically about manufacturing integration, Dutchie Support said it believes it is waiting for NMS2S to make the API available. In a follow-up email, support said Dutchie had received no formal disclosure regarding a roadmap and directed license holders to RTS and CCD for information about future functionality.

Until those capabilities become available and are subsequently implemented by integrators like Dutchie, operators should not assume that manufacturing activity performed in their operational software will make its way into the state system.

And even when the API becomes available, there is another question: how long will integrators need to develop, test and deploy their connections to it?

The state releasing an API does not mean every third-party platform supports it the next morning.

NMS2S may ultimately expose more functionality to third-party integrators. Dutchie may ultimately rebuild many of these workflows as those APIs become available.

Right now, however, operators have to work with what exists today. And today, the lack of connection between Dutchie and NMS2S is not an excuse for staying out of NMS2S.